I almost got scammed and tricked but I was lucky I guess
Hello good people of the rep world,
I am new to this forum but I have joined another forum previously. My experience was full of disappointment and I feel a lot of members are being scammed for not knowing what’s actually going on through deceit and manipulation and the reasons for my story are as follows.
I joined another replica Forum, bought a couple of watches, and didn’t like others so I decided to sell it. I was required to pay a $35 membership fee to become a supporter, which is not a problem as I think everyone should support their forum. A couple of weeks later I was unable to send private messages. So under the sales section there was a so called “help desk”. I filled out the form and someone named “Glaude” replies and asks me to go through some tests with my phone “so he can make sure there is nothing wrong with my phone”. Mmmkay! So the tests included the whereabouts of my location, accepting certain procedures which requires a very strong connection such as a wifi , so they can have access and check that nothing is wrong with my phone. But what Glaude didn’t know was that i am a software developer and I already knew in advance that those guys blocked my private messaging either by mistake or intentionally. He wanted access to my phone which allows them to download a mirror image of the content of my phone. Yes, you guessed it right, mirror image is exactly what it stands for. My pictures, bank accounts, driving license details, credit cards, anything stored in the phone will be copied and the data sent to them.
What did I do ? I told him that I am a software developer and the only way my messaging will work again will be if they enable it internally in the program settings. Thereafter, I never heard back from him again. So I went to the discussion section and tagged the owner and a couple of moderators but they ignored me. I went back on the help desk and asked them to just refund the $35 because they had intentionally disabled my pm and they wanted to steal my sensitive data in a manipulative way but i no longer wanted to be a part of such community . The kept ignoring me.
So I allowed them a couple of month but they didn’t bother responding after several attempts by me. So I opened a PayPal dispute. And as a matter of courtesy, I only stated item not as described.
What do they do ? They abuse the process once again. Instead of just refunding the $35 they defend the case by responding to PayPal that they need the digital USB back in some P.O. Box address in Michigan and they will refund if the item is arrived in the same condition as sent, I will not post those details here because i still respect their privacy as everyone should in a gentlemanly civilized manor. But , they tried to play games by asking for return of something that they initially didn’t sent so PayPal can rule in their favour. The issue is they are collecting sensitive data through manipulation and kids don’t even Realize what’s actually going on such their identity and personal data are stolen.
Feel free to respond or leave any comments you may have. I am not trying to start anything but to fulfil my obligations as a righteous citizen so everyone here and in other forums know what’s going. As this morning PayPal finally decided to rule in my favour after almost 2 weeks of back and forth, under review, etc etc I am sharing this experience of almost being scammed so you don’t have to. Unfortunately, whoever is not part of this forum will be a victim, if you read this and have a friend there please educate them.
Daniel
